Mind

Why is it sometimes hard to write? Because the risk is so great that it won’t be any good. That it will be too honest, too vulnerable. That people won’t engage or respond or understand me. So the questions run through my mind and my desire to avoid risk stops me in my tracks.

My challenge, is to be honest about how little I like to publicly own my faith, despite the enormous amount of time I spend with people who don’t have connection with traditional Churches or spiritual contexts. In the darkest of nights, I’ve questioned whether in fact, I am a fraud.

Sort of romantic, isn’t it? We have two eyes. One to see what is right in front of us, and one for the magic hidden in plain sight. I have chased wonder and mystery down all sorts of pathways and found adventure and surprise along the way. I’ve flown hundreds of miles not to miss the chance to have brief hours of conversation. I’ve slept on buses and trains to get to places I’ve longed to see, just because I wondered what it would look and smell and taste like. It’s a romantic sort of feeling, knowing that there is magic to be found in something as simple as sitting at a kitchen table.

The truth is, I do want more. I want to make a difference. Maybe it’s because I want to have children of my own to invest in and it could be that’s selfish. But I also want to make a difference to the world at large. I don’t want or need fame, but I crave influence – to enable change for the many. I’m ambitious enough to believe I could do it. In fact, in my deepest secret self, I believe I’m meant to, somehow, be part of something bigger and more significant than my life alone.

I do want to be beautiful in ways that are more than just my body, my shape and my skin. I want to be seen as beautiful in all the ways that only I can be seen. I want to be incomparable, therefore nothing about my beauty can be normalized.

I’m short and curvy and strong, but all of that is acceptable in the curvaceous globes of those gluteous maximus and their supporting muscalature. In those moments, I belong to the beautiful crowd – we are alike. Those rounded curves are just as well formed as some of the best I’ve seen, hidden in clothes.

Being stuck is actually, more often than not, a good thing. It’s an opportunity to call on those we trust and rely on to intervene in our situation. Or to spend some time in introspective seculsion, until we can admit that we just need help to get unstuck.